Namaste everyone from calcutta (spelt ...
Trip Start
Oct 07, 2002
1
22
26
Trip End
Apr 18, 2003
Kolkata, India
Wednesday, January 22, 2003
We made it safe and sound here on Sunday morning and it seems like the 2-1/2 hour flight from Bangkok took us to yet another distant planet. Things are so different here and we are loving absolutely every minute of it.
The first things you notice when you arrive here are the pollution and the poverty. The air is thick with smog. During the day you can only see about a mile and then everything simply fades to grey. At night a haze surrounds every street light. There are reportedly 12 million people in this city and it seems that there are just as many taxis and buses ... all belching out blue or black smoke. There is rubbish and poor people everywhere and the destitute seem to sleep in piles of litter ... perhaps it makes a softer bed than the ground or perhaps it helps keep them warm. There are no toilets for them to use and just on the way from the airport to the area we're staying in we saw five people relieving themselves on the sidewalks. Since then we have realized that this is not an uncommon event.
There are sacred cows roaming the city streets and we have even seen a couple of wild horses. Goats and sheep are also seen around the city and the other day we had to scurry to the sidewalk to avoid being trampled by a herd of them.
Cricket is played everywhere ... men play formal games in parks and children play it in the streets ... like we play road hockey in Canada. Another common site is men, wrapped in lungis, bathing on the streets with water obtained from manual pumps like we have at campgrounds. It seems to be many peoples only source of water. They fill large leather canteens from these pumps and in restaurants that we eat in small boys haul buckets from the streets into the kitchens. We have running water in our hotel room ... only cold though, which would be a little too refreshing to bathe with in the chilly mornings or evenings. Luckily we can get buckets of water heated with a heating coil from the nice man at our hotel. At this time of year in Kolkata the temperature dips down to around 12 degrees Celcius at night and only reaches just above the mid-twenties during the day.
We've been buying most of our meals from street vendors. Unlike in Thailand where street vendor food sits uncooked and uncovered in the heat, here most street vendor food is already cooked and is kept piping hot. We are able to have filling meals and still leave a little for a hungry child for about 50 cents Canadian each. Delicious chai tea is available everywhere on the streets for about 15 cents. It's served in little terra cotta cups that people smash on the pavement when they're done their tea.
Now for the best parts about India so far ... the people. They are immensely warm and friendly and we feel completely safe here, despite the numbers of poor people begging. The beggars and the vendors are all very polite, but persistant ... they will walk with you for blocks trying to convince you to give them something or buy something from them. The people are also fiercly pround of their city, their country, their culture and their heritage. Luckily for us there apparently haven't been so many tourists here that they are sick of us. Often people come up to us in the street to talk to us ... to find out about us and to tell us about India and Indian culture. Most speak excellent english and seem very well educated, except perhaps in the areas of hygene and sanitation. Frequently people walking past or riding past on the bus will wave, smile and shout hello ... we seem to be as intersting to them as they are to us. The women here wear beautiful and very colorful beaded and embroided saris and salwar suits and many of them are very pretty.
At this moment we don't have any travelling plans ... we've thought about things a little, but have been too busy just enjoying our first experiences of India to do any real planning. We'll probably spend at least few more days in friendly Kolkata before moving on ... 'till then take care of each other and God Bless you all.
Love Jayne & Arn
P.S. - We'll post photos for this entry later.
